This may be a bit presumptive on my part, but does the commission character count not shed some light on this question?  Now I don't know anything about anything here, but I'd say definite perks of JB's commission work are A) drawing characters he likes 2) Not drawing characters he doesn't like.

Then again, what do I know?  Kitty Pryde: 12.  Professor X: 8.

the team is filled with B and C-List heroes.

.................

So?  I thought the B/C-list characters were the most interesting ones in The Avengers.  Giving the lesser known characters a chance to develop was a cool by product of these type of teams.  The All-New All-Different X-Men wasn't exactly loaded with A-listers in '75.

Originally, the idea behind the Champions was that Bobby and Warren were going to be driving around Southern California ala' Route 66 and find super-heroic adventures wherever they went. Unfortunately, that was something of an untried premise and the powers that be insisted upon a more conventional "super-team" set-up. I've never felt the mix was a good one. A roman super-god, a Blaxploitation replacement character, three Russian defectors, a demon from Hell, and two former X-Men equals... what? Nothing that seemed intriguing to me...

The Defenders, however, arguably just as eclectic and lacking in rationale, was pure super-team magic for me... I really loved every single one of those characters.*

*I should note that I stopped reading around the time J.M. DeMatteis chose an all-supernatural-all-the-time theme for the book, so I have no truck with Manslaughter, Cloud, Gargoyle, or that crowd. I know Gargoyle at least has his fans, but I am not one of them.

••

The Avengers was the team for the top talent*, the Defenders was the team for characters who really wouldn't be in a team -- and the Champions, as we used to say up at the Office, was the team for everybody else.

___

* Which is one reason, among many, that I was so appalled when I accepted the assignment of writing THE AVENGERS and was told that Quasar would be joining the team!

.................

Neil: So?  I thought the B/C-list characters were the most interesting ones in The Avengers.  Giving the lesser known characters a chance to develop was a cool by product of these type of teams.  The All-New All-Different X-Men wasn't exactly loaded with A-listers in '75.

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I have no problem with B/C list characters on a team.

You missed the first half of what I wrote.

"First off, we felt the name of the team was ridiculous... the team is filled with B and C-List heroes." 

When we were kids, we felt a team of B/C list characters named the "Champions" was ridiculous. We felt the group was filled with 2nd-stringers. Not "Champions".

We felt Marvel was overselling the team. The characters didn't live up to the title of that book for us.

"Weeeee are the Champions, my friends! And we'll keep on fighting 'til the end! We are the Champions! We are the Champions! No time for losers! 'Cause we are the Champions... Of the world!"

I did not like that song as a kid. The lousy punks at school would screech that anthem when they were pushing you around, and asking "Champions of what?" got you absolutely nowhere. (And when I say "you" I mean me.)

I had no interest in a book that read to me as if it were capitalizing on that song.

Years later, I will say I kinda like the song, and issue 17 of that book, inked by JB over George Tuska's pencils is trippy as all get-out.